JavaScript first invaded the Web, the lynchpin to what made browsers functional. Next JavaScript came for the server, installing Node.js on the backend. Later JavaScript arrived on for the apps with React Native building across platforms.
JavaScript is now coming for your things. All of your Internet of Things.
Which seems crazy. Even though it is by far the most-used programming language, most trained computer scientists and software engineers hate JavaScript. Its syntax is funny and it can be overly simple, in an obtusely complex kind of way.
And yet, JavaScript continues to grow. Like the scar tissues that connects two torn joints.
The reason that JavaScript works for the Web is the same reason that it works on the server and will eventually work for the Internet of Things: its prime feature allows for parallel programming, letting certain features run while not inhibiting others. On the server, Node.js is event-driven, which makes it perfect for running fairly simple devices that send data to a Web client and a server.
See also: JavaScript Dominates As The No. 1 Programming Language
JavaScript was built to make Web pages dynamic. To allow websites to gather information or produce dialogue boxes or run ads, scripts or pictures while the rest of the website continued to function. It is this same feature that makes it good on the server and eventually good for the Internet of Things.
“I think that the most encouraging thing from an application point of view that I have seen is the emergence of JavaScript as a programming environment for IoT,” said Michael Richmond, executive director of standards group Open Connectivity Foundation, in an interview with ARC. “Which is, if you are really, really, really thinking about it, is the weirdest thing you can think of.”
